Lì’fyari po peyì? How good is her Na’vi?

This post introduces the important noun yì and its use in talking about different levels of things, including attainment in language.

yì (n.) ‘shelf, ledge, level, step, rung’

The basic meaning of yì is that of a small, flat area on which one can stand or place an object, such as a foot.

Tsayerik kllkxem sìn yì akxayl. Tìng mikyun
‘That yerik is standing on a high ledge.’

Ngey tskoti yem tsayìsìn tsakrr za’u fìtseng! Tìng mikyun
‘Put your bow on that ledge and come here!’

(Ngey rather than ngeyä, as you know, is very familiar and colloquial, and sometimes a bit rude.)

When Mo’at first appears in Uniltìrantokx to examine Jake, she descends a series of levels rather like a staircase.

snayì (n., sna.YÌ) ‘staircase, series of step-like levels’

Kllzola’u Mo’at fa snayì tengkrr perlltxe san Aynga neto rivikx! Tìng mikyun
Mo’at came down the (natural) stairway saying, “Get back, all of you!”

A yì can also be a cutout, shelf, or hole—any cavity with a flat bottom surface—in a tree, cliff, or mountain, on which you can place your foot as you climb.

Ke tsun oe fì’awkxit tsyivìl. Ke lu tsaru kea yì. Tìng mikyun
‘I can’t scale this cliff. It doesn’t have any footholds.’

The importance of yì lies in the fact that it can be used metaphorically to refer to the level of anything scalable—anything that can have levels or degrees, highs and lows: water level, temperature, talent, anger, etc. For example:

Taluna vospxìo amrr ke zolup tompa, längu yì kilvanä tìm nìtxan. Tìng mikyun
Because it hasn’t rained for five months, the river level is very low.

Nari si, ma Tsyeyk! Neytiriri lu yì tìstiyä kxayl nìngay. Tìng mikyun
Be careful, Jake! Neytiri is really angry.

There are two different grammatical structures that go with yì questions, and you’re generally free to choose whichever one you like.

The first uses tok: you occupy a certain level. That structure, of course, is transitive:

Lì’fyari pol tok peyìt? Tìng mikyun
‘How good is her Na’vi?’

Literally, the sentence above is saying, “As for language, what level does she occupy?”

That, by the way, is how it’s said on Pandora, since there, “language” means “the Na’vi language.” Mì ’Rrta, however, that could be confusing, since there are many languages we could be asking about. So it’s often best to say, “Lì’fyari leNa’vi pol tok peyìt?”

The second structure is intransitive: you stand on a certain level:

Lì’fyari po kllkxem sìn peyì? Tìng mikyun
‘How good is her Na’vi?’

Kllkxem sìn is the general expression for standing on anything—a ledge, rock, hill, etc. Note that the common phrase sìn peyì is pronounced as if it were spelled sìm peyì, although the n doesn’t change in writing.

The previous example is somewhat formal; in speech, there are two informal variants. First, kllkxem may be dropped:

Lì’fyari po sìn peyì? Tìng mikyun
‘How good is her Na’vi?’

And in even less formal situations, sìn may be dropped as well:

Lì’fyari po peyì? Tìng mikyun
‘How good is her Na’vi?’

In all of these, however, kllkxem sìn is understood.

I’ll leave you with some examples of questions and answers using yì.

First note the following compounds:

kxaylyì (n., KXAYL.yì) ‘high level’

kxamyì (n., KXAM.yì) ‘intermediate level’

tìmyì (n., TÌM.yì) ‘low level’

Lì’fyari tsatawtute peyì? Tìng mikyun
‘How is that Sky Person’s Na’vi?’

Kxaylyì. Ke tsun oe spivaw. Slolu po tsulfätu lì’fyayä awngeyä. Tìng mikyun
‘It’s excellent. I can’t believe it. He’s become a master of our language.’

Kxamyì. Plltxe nìksran, slä tsun fko peyä aylì’ut tslivam. Tìng mikyun
‘It’s intermediate. His speech is mediocre, but you can understand him.’

Tìmyì. Pol ke tslam stum ke’ut, omum lì’ut avol nì’aw. Tìng mikyun
‘Pretty bad. He understands almost nothing and only knows eight words.’

Furia täftxu ngal tok yìpet? Tìng mikyun
‘How’s your weaving?’

Tok yìt akesran. Tìng mikyun
‘I’m so-so.’

Fol fnan futa ’em teylut a fì’u sìn peyì? Tìng mikyun
‘How good are they at cooking teylu?’

The above example is important to understand. The question is, what’s the a fì’u doing there? (With the other way of saying it, Fwa fol fnan futa ’em teylut sìn peyì? the question is similar: Why do we need the fwa (= fì’u a)?) The answer is that with peyì, the metaphorical idea of standing on a particular level is still very strong. If kllkxem or both kllkxem and sìn are omitted, which they may be, they nevertheless remain as “understood,” and it must be possible to put them back into the sentence. Something has to be standing on the level, and that something is fì’u, modified appropriately with a and a clause. A literal translation into horrible English that makes this explicit would be: ‘The they’re-good-at-cooking-teylu thing stands on what level?’ The moral of the story is, don’t be tempted to omit fwa/a fì’u in peyì questions. You can’t say *Po plltxe peyì? ‘How well does he speak?’ It’s either Fwa po plltxe peyì? or Po plltxe a fì’u peyì?

Sìn yì sngä’iyuä, slä tsyerìl (haya yìne) nì’ul’ul. Tìng mikyun
‘They’re at a beginner’s level, but they’re getting better and better.’
(Literally: climbing more and more (to the next level).)

Fwa ngeyä tsmukan tul nìwin sìn peyì? Tìng mikyun
‘How fast does your brother run?’

Sìn yì a ke tsun kawtu spivaw, nìwin frato. Tìng mikyun
‘He runs at an incredible level, faster than anyone else.’

Edit: vospxì amrr –> vospxìo amrr  Irayo, ma Blue Elf! Irayo, ma Plumps!